Search - Ambarchi and Ng: Fateless on DVD

"Gray shoals of data"

mark ultra | in a cold place, Canada | 01/26/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"For readers familiar with the writings of William Gibson,
Fateless should find a sympathetic resonance. Ambarchi's
metered pulse and drone are an ideal growth medium from
which the seeds of Tina Frank's visuals morph into abstract
forms, much as Gibson's cyberspace might have appeared, were
it the case that such a thing could be adapted for the screen.
Possibly oscilloscope video mapped onto a deformable
mesh, the effect is stunning and unsettling.

The second half is quite indescribable, though if I were
to tender an adjective, perhaps its not unlike an ancient nanontechnological CAM cell, inducing autocatalytic reactions
among proteins suspended in a monomer lattice.

Beyond aficionados of Ambarchi's sound sculpting, chemists,
sci-fi writers, motion graphics designers and computer
animators should find the aesthetic to be compelling, albeit
bereft of any supporting narrative that might have the effect
of connecting the content to the materio-semiotic medium of the
screen in which it occurs. More likely, Fateless is like any
esoteric form. You either get it or you don't.


"